Rates & Barrels - Finding future aces, Max Scherzer's continued dominance, and just how good is J.D. Davis?

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

Eno and DVR discuss what they're looking for in pitchers while trying to find future value, Max Scherzer's shifting Stuff+ and continued elite status in his age-36 season, and expectations for Chris Sale coming back from Tommy John surgery. Plus, a simple question: "How good is J.D. Davis?" Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/mo: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70, celebrating 70 years of Topps baseball cards. Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. It is Monday, July 19th. Eno, I saw a picture that you were at the beach, but it was cold because you warned me about this as a soon-to-be Bay Area resident. The weather at the beach, certain parts of the peninsula, it's not the 85-degree scorching day

that many of us are accustomed to when we go to the beach. Yeah, I think it was pushing 59 when I took that picture. In July. That's so bizarre. Yeah. I mean, the key is, and the problem is, that around 2, if the fog is going to burn off, it does.

And so then it gets to about 65. On nice days, it gets to 70, 75 sometimes even out there. But the problem is that everybody sort of knows that, so it gets really crowded at 2. And with kids, sometimes we're just like, hey, let's just go early and be cold. You can't swim, but you can at least go to the beach and play in the sand. Kids were digging around in the sand, yeah.

And the dogs really enjoy it. Even though we can't let them off-leash because they're not that great. So we have to kind of run along with them. But they really enjoy just the different sensory stuff. Yeah, it was a good day. They're a work in progress. They're good boys. They're learning to become good boys. That's what i would say yeah they're trying yeah yeah you saw firsthand what it's like and oh

my gosh it's happening it's white behind you you can see you're already packing the teardown has begun possessions are making their way into friends' and families' homes, giving things away as much as we possibly can, donating stuff. I've kind of danced around this on a bunch of episodes. I am moving to the Bay Area. My wife got a job out there, so I'm leaving Wisconsin. I've lived here since I was in eighth grade, so it's been a long time. I've been either near Milwaukee or near Madison pretty much for all of my life at this point, at least all of the years I can remember for the most part. So it's going to be strange to leave, actually leaving in two weeks already. Yeah, in two weeks, I'll be partway to California already. Happens to be the Bay Area, so Eno and I will be pretty close and probably get to do some more fun live events and different things we've hinted at before. Definitely exciting times. Lots of change for me and things will keep disappearing out of the backdrop if you're

watching on YouTube. As you miss things, leave a comment for the items that you miss the most from the backdrop and maybe they will reappear someday. If they hold a lot of value in your heart, maybe I will find room for them in my car. No guarantees though because I think it's going to be a tricky

tricky process i want this to be just like this gradual process of the things behind you just being walked off by random people and you're still podcasting to the last second like somebody takes the whole set and you're like out in the field it would be pretty funny to see that happen i can imagine my father-in-law just deconstructing the entire apartment while I record. Oh, I didn't know that was actually something that would move. That door, he had to move it to get a treadmill

out of here. It'd be like the beginning scene when Schitt's Creek, when they're having all their things repossessed. It would probably look a little bit like that with all the items just vanishing in the background. Lots to get to on this episode and some history actually to be

made on Tuesday. Some really exciting stuff happening for the Orioles-Rays game. This game is going to be broadcast on YouTube. It's a 7-10 Eastern first pitch. Melanie Newman, who does play-by-play for the Orioles radio network, is going to be the play-by-play announcer for that

game. Sarah Langs, who we've heard on several of the athletic podcasts from MLB.com. She's going to be the in-booth analyst. And then Alana Rizzo, who's been a on-field reporter for the Dodgers in the past. She currently works at MLB network. I think she appears on high heat on a regular basis. She's going to be the field reporter for the game, and then Heidi Watney and Lauren Gardner are going to anchor the pre- and post-game shows. So an awesome all-female crew, first time in Major League history that it's happening, and the winds of progress are slow,

but it's great to see things like this coming together. Yeah, it is really cool. I met Melanie Newman, it must have been at a winter meetings or something. A long time ago. She was working for Round Rock, I think, at the time. Maybe announcing their games. And so I've followed her career along closely and support her.

Sarah Langs has been sort of exploded onto the scene with her great sense of numbers and her really impressively fast ability to call upon different numbers and research. I cannot do things that fast. I've been like, oh, let me look this thing up. And then she tweets it. Yes.

You might recall back in October when we were doing the playoff shows at night, there was probably no more than two shows out of 20 that went by where we didn't have a tweet from Sarah Langs because she was so good at pulling really good information very quickly. Absolutely, as you said, just a really great crew up and down. And yeah, I think I met Melanie in the Fall League one year. She was covering some of the Diamondbacks prospects. That must be it. That must be it. It must have been the Fall League. That's it. The Fall League is awesome. It's such a tight-knit circle. If you sit in the press box for a game, you meet everybody because there's about four to five people at most there.

And you're kind of like, so why are you here? Actually, that works in the stands, too, because there's only about 50 people in the stands. Yeah. What brings you to the Fall League? A great pitching matchup for that game on Tuesday, too. It's John Means against Shane McClanahan. And again, it's on YouTube, so you don't have to have an MLB TV subscription to watch it. 7-10 Eastern first pitch. And I think there was a great story that Britt wrote two years ago. Melanie was calling games for the Salem Red Sox.

And her and Susie Kuhl worked together on about 30-plus games that year. And I think that was the first time two female booths had called games in the minor leagues together, too. So more history being made this week. There's also an interesting thing here going on. was the first time a two-female booth had called games in the minor leagues together too so more history being made this week there's also an interesting thing here going on like i'm sure somebody will bring up like oh they didn't play and like most booths have a former player in them um but uh it's a little bit like coaching i think where um i don't think that the the main skill is playing you know like no it's really not like when you when you like the main skill for a coach is coaching right this may sound just stupid but like the main skill for a coach is coaching i think in other sports like everyone's totally

fine with that you know like yes like jason kidd and steve nash are trying to be coaches but there are plenty of coaches in in the nba and in the nfl i mean uh just just look at some of their sizes yeah andy reed great nfl player right yeah right kurt rambis yeah i think i think for the most part, in other sports, they're a little bit more okay with the idea that coaching is the main skill, not necessarily playing. And I think that's actually true of the booth

because I think the main skills are analysis and storytelling. Those are the two keys. And I think the best announcers and the best the best announcers i think spend time in the clubhouse getting to know the players and you're like oh i was just talking to him the other day about bobby block right um and uh the best analysis is quick and tells a good story um and doesn't get you bogged down in the details. And Sarah Langs does that. And Melanie Newman's a great storyteller. So I just wanted to sort of make that point about how I'm not saying

that, you know, that players can't be great storytellers and some of them connect with modern day players and tell good stories. But I don't think that it's a requirement that you have played professional baseball to be that person in the booth. Yeah, it is not a prerequisite to being a great analyst and to adding color to a game and making the game more exciting. It's a lot of time to fill when you think about broadcasting a baseball game start to finish like three to three and a half hours every single day. If you don't tell interesting stories, if you don't bring interesting information, you will fall on your face. There are so many boots out there that you listen to and you're just like, wow, you guys fell a little short. That will not be the case on Tuesday. They're going to do a great job. That's a great crew that was put together for that game. The main topics on today's show, we had a bunch of questions trickling in, as we often do.

I'm so appreciative of the quality of the questions that we get here. I would say that at least half of the emails we get are written as questions that could go directly under the rundown. the emails we get are written as questions that could go directly under the rundown. And most of the other half can be pretty quickly modified, or they're at least a thought starter for us to take a topic and turn it into something that we can talk about for a little while. And one of the main questions I wanted to get to is one that came in from Bill. And boiling it down, it was basically, what's on the rubric for grading pitchers for the future? And he was asking in the context of playing for next year in a keeper or dynasty league. But I think this applies to just about every type of league,

because if you're looking to pick a pitcher up for the stretch run or make a trade for a pitcher for the rest of the season, you're probably, in many cases, looking for someone who hasn't maxed out in value yet. Like, sure, you might be in a position in a keeper or dynasty league where you can throw some prospects at somebody and get back a top-end guy. You can go get Brandon Woodruff or Walker Buehler in a trade, but more often than not, you're trying to get somebody who hasn't fully popped just yet. I think we need to drill into what's different about the rubric for the long-term pitchers.

This was on my mind over the weekend anyway, because I wrote about Jesus Lizardo for a little bit. He is struggling right now at AAA, and I wrote him up and suggested he's still a very good long-term trade target, a guy that you would actually want to put on your teams in keeper and dynasty leagues if you're playing for the future, and someone that I would expect to have a lot of on my rosters and redraft leagues in 2022 because you know barring a great finish to this season lazardo will cost less on draft day next season than he did throughout this draft season and the main thing that drew me to lazardo is the number of pitches that he throws he throws four pitches and he mixes them all pretty effectively. We're talking about four pitches that he throws about 20% of the time

or more each. That's pretty rare for a guy that young. And I think that's one of the traits that I'd be most excited about in the absence of stuff and command numbers that we get for guys that have debuted. It's kind of a mix. For guys that have debuted, you get a peek under the hood. You get to see a little bit of what's actually going on. For guys that haven't or guys that have made very few starts, it becomes a little bit more difficult, and you have to find some other factors that you want to seek out as you look for these pitchers.

Yeah. I mean, for the most part, I don't value pitching prospects very highly. When it comes to minor league ones, I would say that almost any reason would be enough for me to pick them off the wire because there are different ways for pitchers to be good. If you focus too intently on one rubric you're going to miss other types of pitchers that are good so i would say like if a pitcher pops at you for any reason they're interesting so if they are

even like alec mills and have that's a major league version but but if you see a 60 command on a pitcher, right? And good numbers. They're all going to have good numbers in the minor leagues. I mean, Lizardo's having a little trouble right now, but most of these pitchers are going to have good numbers in the minor leagues. It's going to be like, why do I pick this guy up over this guy? And I would just say, look for something that looks elite. So if they have 60 command, pick them up. If they have a 60 fastball, pick them up.

If they have four pitches that are above 50 or something, pick them up in terms of the scouting grades. So that's my answer for the minor leagues because it's very different once I get to the major leagues. Yeah. Then I'm looking for, although in a similar way, I'm looking for something to pop. So I'm looking for an elite command number or elite stuff number. I'm looking for something because they're not going to come up fully formed.

It's very rare. So the reason I love Zach Gallin and Julio Urias so much is they came up and had great stuff in command numbers, have had great numbers while pitching, and I think will have good careers. Already you've seen some injury here or there with them. I thought they would be mostly clean slate guys, but injury comes for everyone, I guess. But the point is, you're going to have to choose. You're not always gonna have these

perfect command and stuff numbers and so i would say uh a pitcher becomes interesting as soon as they do something interesting you know as soon as they like as something something pops you know what i mean yeah and i think for lizardo just to run with that example a little bit further the only thing that gave me some pause is that both the stuff and the location plus numbers, both this year and last year, are pretty average. They're not bad, but nothing was standing out in those metrics. So how much wiggle room do you have when you see results like that? Again, we're still talking about a relatively small body of work for Lizardo, even throughout his time in the minor leagues because of the injuries he's had. He's thrown a lot fewer innings in the last five years

than people realize. How much can you look at the stuff and location numbers to this point from Lizardo and pull down the ceiling a bit? Because even if the previous ceiling was possible SP2, there's a long way to go from that ceiling to, ah, he's a back-end end guy. He could be a middle rotation

guy. With the velo bump he'd get on his fastballs, a reliever, and the secondaries he could choose from, he could be an absolutely filthy reliever. I think there's still plenty of reason for the A's to try continuing to develop him as a starter a while longer before they even go down that road.

How much do the numbers from him to this point give you pause about where his ceiling truly is? Yeah, it's a great point to come back to Lizardo because I do think he does have that. He has one thing that he does really well that makes him interesting. It's the fastball velocity. Plenty of ELO. Sitting 96 from the left is pretty decent. And that, I think, sometimes is good enough.

I mean, I once picked up Garrett Richards for one of his best seasons early, early on because he had opportunity and velocity. And I think both of those things are there for Lozardo. So I will continue to watch him with great interest because the stuff numbers don't tell a good story. But also, I feel like if you put him in driveline or put him in the right lab

and coaxed some better shapes out of his pitches, he's shown the ability to spin it. He's shown the ability to have a good changeup. So I think I would get him in the lab and be like, we're going to work on a cutter and a slow curve. And we're going to put, instead of this slur that you have going, we're going to try and put some distance between these two and to give you two breaking balls.

And that's what I would work on with him. And I think he could probably do it. So there could be like a new Jesus Lizardo who has a better stuff plus number because he's changed the shapes on his pitches. But it all started because he's 96 and can spin it a little bit. Yeah, and I wonder if that's a transformation that has to happen over a winter

as opposed to something he's going to pick up during his time in the minors. I mean, he could come back and give them good innings, but it may take several weeks of reshaping those pitches before he's going to be the guy we want him to be. He also may have to go outside of the organization weeks of reshaping those pitches before he's going to be the guy we want him to be. He also may have to go outside of the organization and do what I heard a few minor league prospects say at the Futures game, quote unquote, take his career into his own hands.

Yep. We might be at that point for him, but definitely on my list of guys that I'm interested in in the long run. But I think Velo, I mean a you have a list of of some names here on the rundown yeah i've got i got michael kopech which i think is pretty obvious like if because he's he's an injury away from getting that chance for the white socks like they pretty clearly could just bump him into the rotation if they had the need to do it i think nate pearson and spencer howard are still like they're always stuck together in my mind i think it's because they've missed a lot of time with injuries. They both throw hard. Howard's arsenal is probably a little deeper. So I think that's

that's one thing that would lead me to want Howard more than Pearson if I had to choose. But Pearson has that plus plus V though. Right. And then you think about the park factors like pitching in Philly is really tough. So those guys are still on the radar for me. Like if you're not playing for this year and you're looking to the future,

obviously they're bouncing back and forth right around big league ready. They make some sense. I think one of the harder guys to figure out right now is Matt Manning because this has not been a good start to his career. Home runs have been a problem for him at AAA. They've been a problem for him in limited time. He's been in the big leagues. He's had arm injuries. Is this the kind of guy

you'd say, you know what, there's too much going wrong. I'm not actually going to trade for Matt Manning. I'm not going to buy low on him, long-term buy low on him because I'm seeing too many red flags to actually feel good about it. There were some red flags in his, what is it called, his progress through the minor leagues in terms of injury and results. And I think some people were already sort of pulling back, even on the scouting front, from having him as a standout guy.

from having him as a standout guy. The Stuff Plus tells a story of a pretty good slider, a pretty good changeup, but a round league average, and then a bad fastball, a pretty bad fastball. So I don't know. That's an oft-told story. The one thing I would say that makes Matt Manning leap off the page for me is his home park. In his last start, he threw fewer fastballs, too,

and he got his overall stuff plus up to 96. his overall stuff plus up to 96 so i think somebody with okay command uh and uh league average stuff in that ballpark is still interesting to me so sometimes it can be he's a tiger is the thing that makes me interested in that one i think maybe the shape of Tarek Skubal's early career numbers has given me a little more optimism with Manning than I might have otherwise. And Skubal's still having trouble keeping the ball in the park, even though he's pitching a lot better. I think over the last two months, Skubal's got a.355 ERA,.126 whip, 65 Ks, and 50 and two-thirds innings. In a normal year, that's like good SP3, maybe even SP2 sort of production from Scooble. And he's given up 28 homers and 120 big league innings so far.

That's a staggering home run rate for him. So, I mean, is this an organization we should trust with pitching? Is there a reason to trust them? And again, the park is obviously part of this too, but maybe that should factor into the analysis. I think what Schuble and Mize are telling us is that their major league pitching coaching is better than their minor league pitching coaching.

If you think about how Mize and Schuble arrived in the big leagues and then how their stuff looks now, they've both undergone fairly like large transitions right yeah scooble changed up his pitch mix a lot already so then mize man i mean mize like mize changed his shape on his fastball and went to and changed his shape on his hard breaking ball and went to those more than his changeup. Like he came up as like the guy with the amazing splitter, right?

And then in his second year, he came back. He's like, no, I have a really great breaking ball and my foreseam is actually good now. And I'm not going to be a sinker guy. So I would say their major league pitching coaching is good. Their home park is great. And Matt Manning still has some velo and he's now working with the guys. I'm not saying that Matt Manning is going to do the MyScoogle.

He probably seems like the least one to bet on of the three. Makes him the easiest to get though. What makes him interesting. He at least has – that's my rubric. Does he do something interesting? And in this case, I would say being a Tiger, having Velo, and working with that major league pitching coach

are good enough things to make me interested. The other name I was going to write up in the column this weekend that I chickened out because it was just about long-term buy lows, Jackson Coar, who continues to pitch well was bouncing stuff and he was all over the place. His AAA numbers are still good and stuff in command numbers are not good, but based on Jackson Coar, he was so

bad that I don't think you can even look at stuff in command because he only threw five innings and he wasn't even executing pitches in the most literal sense i'm tempted to say he's a pretty smart by low because he continues to dominate triple a minor league results i think do carry some weight and what's interesting to me about him well the opportunity it's wide open they have that need for pitching

so i think he gets a chance before the season's over and probably looks a lot better the second time around with the Royals. Once they give them that chance. I think again here, the thing that makes them interesting is pitches for the Royals. I mean, I think their pitching development is probably a little bit behind, uh,

at least the major league pitching coaching, because they're having some, uh, some real difficulties in league pitching coaching, because they're having some, uh, some real difficulties in that pitching staff. Um, and, uh, they seem to have a type too. They're very heavy on the fastball slider guy, but co-r is best. Secondary is a change up. Um, and, uh, he has 96. So I'm definitely interested in him. Like, it is weird to see such poor command from a guy that, you know, only one time in the minor leagues had a walk rate that was worse than average. And that was his, like, A ball.

Yeah, so I think there's more good than bad in that profile for sure. So he makes the list for the podcast, even though he did not make the cut for the column. Any other names you can think of that are popping in a good way with the underlying numbers, but they don't necessarily have the surface results? That's usually when you get those clear buying opportunities. I mentioned Pearson and Howard. They're just so frustrating to this point. I mentioned Pearson and Howard.

They're just so frustrating to this point. I thought we'd get a little more from both of those guys than we've received through the first half and change now of this season. Sort by stuff. I like to do that. I like to sort by stuff. Tanner Houck. Yeah. A glue guy for Boston for sure.

Oh, and Sam Long, dude. I mean, this is – Sam Long would be interesting if he had stuff that was like... A stuff number that was five lower. You know what I mean? He has a 114 stuff plus in pitches for San Francisco. Like, you've already got me. You know? And he's coming back this week.

Justin Dunn still interests me. I know that the numbers haven't looked good but the stuff in command numbers underneath are good and Seattle isn't quite the pitchers park that I have in my head I don't think and I guess he has

a 3-7-5 ERA so maybe somebody's saying he already broke out but I think there's plenty of people who look at the five walks per night and say this isn't going to work out. Command Plus says it's a league average command. I do like Dunn. As long as he gets healthy again, I'm in on Justin Dunn.

Long is a great call because I think the lack of prospect pedigree, the fact that he's already 26 years old, those two things alone kept the interest down in him when he first came up he's on the aisle with a back injury right now but i think he's going to give us good innings when he comes back i think the giants need him to provide good innings too he's kind of a extra nice little piece to put into that rotation mix yeah yeah still uh love austin voth uh still love christian j Javier, although the command plus number is low and the team seems to be okay with having him as a reliever.

They're treating him weirdly, I think. Still have some love for Jameson Tyon. But now we're getting old. Yeah, definitely getting a little older here i mean i think the the javier thing is interesting because he'd be the other type of pitcher that fits we're looking for something interesting be that velo above average pitches above average command right you want something some standout skill javier i think does have standout pitches and he doesn't have the role right now but even though I think the stuff numbers back this up,

Luis Garcia is better than Christian Javier. Christian Javier might be good enough to stick as a starter when there is an opportunity. And those guys who are the next guy up, especially this time of year, this is a great time to trade for Christian Javier and a keeper or dynasty league. Because if the winter goes by and we have injuries something changes in that depth chart and it becomes clear

that he's going to be a starter going in the next season it will cost a lot more in February or March to go out and make a deal for him or to draft him than it will to just simply make that move in a long-term league for him right now and I think he is their next option into that rotation if they lose anybody yeah uh and then there's the uh the two baileys uh falter and ober uh that have their well falter is having a harder time uh nailing that roll down uh but people don't believe in ober uh the thing that makes them both interesting is standout command that's maybe not what people expect when they see Ober who's like 7 feet tall

but both of them also have a little deception in the way they release the ball like a lot of extension basically and so I think they're good to point out because they don't have prospect pedigree um they don't leap out the page on stuff or velocity um but they do do something that can make them interesting yeah so hopefully that gives

a nice general rubric for people out there in long-term leagues or even those just looking for undervalued arms potentially for the final part of the season saving money in fab always nice to do that if you can or saving pieces in trade also very helpful if you can pull that off it's funny i just think of this. I had this one legendary year in Devils Rejects where in the draft. So after we'd kept, you know, it's 20 teams, 28 keepers. So after we kept all those players in the draft, I drafted Dallas Keuchel, Carlos Carrasco, Jake Arrieta and Garrett Richards. All in the sort of 600 to 700 range, all the year before they broke out. I mean, that was they all had that the next year, they all had great years. And I did them all like

somebody was like, well, what was the rubric or whatever? I was like, well, Dallas Keuchel had a pitch mix change. I don't know if people remember, he used to throw a curveball and then he went to a slider, I think. And I could spot that in the results and with the pitch of exchange, I was like, he's a lot better than his overall numbers suggest. Jake Arrieta and Garrett Richards, I said, well, these guys throw really hard and they both have opportunities. They both are going to go into the rotation. And then Carlos Carrasco was like, this guy has multiple pitches, throws hard, and used to have prospect pedigree. That was the rubric, really. New orgs, too, I think, kind of factor in there.

I mean, Carrasco getting out of Philly and going into Cleveland, and Arrieta back in the day leaving Baltimore and going to the Cubs. New coaching. Even if it's a new pitching coach on their own team, I think new coaching is a big deal. Yeah, and double the impact if you get the new coaching and pair it with an easier league and or improved park factors, which I think is the case for Arrieta especially.

Yeah, like all of the things got better for Arrieta all at once. Left Baltimore? Oh, he's interesting. Thanks a lot for that question, Bill. It was a great thought starter for today's interesting. Thanks a lot for that question, Bill. It was a great thought starter for today's show. All right, you know, let's get to a few more of these questions. We have an inquiry about Max Scherzer, and the question comes from DT. DT writes, on his fantasy baseball rankings, Eno has Max Scherzer at number four, which completely makes sense, except when you consider his Stuff Plus number, which is just average.

Is there something about Scherzer's fastball and slider that Stuff Plus doesn't capture? Perhaps it's Mad Max breathing in some crazy mental energies to the ball. Thanks again for answering the fan questions, DT. So Max Scherzer actually has a good stuff number now we we did an update to to it and and it's kind of fascinating we did we added spin efficiency as a feature and the reason we're doing this is I think ideally you would break spin into two components and then have some sort of idea of how much the ball spins horizontally and then how much it spins vertically.

And if you did that, you might be able to find out about how different spins interact with each other. But we threw in spin efficiency as a proxy for that. Because spin efficiency is just how much of the spin is captured in the movement. But I think it's mostly judged by vertical movement. So spin efficiency is a stat that points out the relationship between vertical and horizontal spin. I think you could almost express it in spin axis, the same information. But in any case, spin efficiency gave us Max Scherzer's slider as a standout pitch.

So now with spin efficiency in there Max Schroeder sliders a 121 stuff plus slider a very good slider and I'm looking right now at the interaction the feature interaction between the velocity on the slider and his spin efficiency and there's a grouping of really good pitches that are hard sliders that are gyro sliders. That's basically what he throws, which is a slider that doesn't have a lot of movement, but has a fair amount of spin. And so the harder he throws that slider, the better it is. Which is interesting because he also has a cutter but

that's just the truth so uh when i look at his stuff plus card now i see uh four really great pitches and the change up that was supposed to be his bread and butter when he came up uh is his worst pitch now but it's a 90 stuff plus so it's still like a decent pitch so what makes masters are good um we didn't uh give his slider enough credit because it's a gyro slider that doesn't uh move quote unquote as much as other sliders um and the spin isn't turned into movement uh but it's still it's still very good uh i think it i think what we're seeing from ashley's the slider has good late movement because if you throw a gyro uh slider that um spins like a bullet and doesn't move a lot um as the sort of pitch uh as the as the as the arc of the pitch changes right

like when you throw it it's going sort of vert it's like going like it's going parallel to the ground right but as it approaches the plate the pitch is now it takes on like a like a curve right like it gets going closer to the ground and as that trajectory changes um the ball uh will capture more of the spin and move. So if you have a high spin pitch that's not moving at this trajectory, when it gets close to the plate and it's falling, the trajectory changes and so therefore it'll capture some of that spin and move. So there is actually like a scientific basis for the thing that players have been telling us is this it all along which is late movement exists i don't care what your stupid machine says

late movement exists and now we're like oh yes uh look at this machine readout he's right late movement exists so i think that's uh scherzer Scherzer has a gyro slider that doesn't quote-unquote move a lot, but has late movement, and our recent update captured that. But he's also a guy that has four or five pitches, right? And telling the difference in just in numbers between Tyler Glass now and Max Scherzer is very difficult because you have your sort of two elite pitch guy you know he was better when he added the third pitch but you have a guy when you have a guy who has two elite pitches Patrick Corbin you know when

they have two elite pitches uh how does that age how does that uh look compared to a guy like Max Scherzer who who has a lot of pitches. So I think if I'm betting on someone long-term and I want to sign a pitcher in my dynasty league or something, I want them to have a lot of pitches. I don't want to sign Patrick Corbin. I'd rather sign Hyunjin Ryu. I don't really want to sign Tyler Glass now long-term. I'd rather sign the next Max Serzer.

Zach Gallin. Lots of pitches. If you go back, and we've probably pulled this thread before, but the old scouting reports on Max Scherzer, when he first entered professional baseball, a lot of them pointed to him being a reliever

I think in part because it was delivery. It's a very violent delivery with the head jerk. I think people thought the command wasn't going to be good enough for him as a starter. I guess when you think about a guy like Glasnow, you'd also have to weigh the likelihood of him adding more pitches at this stage of his career. Is it possible that Glasnow eventually feels good

with that third pitch, adds a fourth? But it took so long, dude. Right. It's a tough thing to assume is going to happen. He can still be really good for a long time as is, but he won't be as good for as long a period of time if

he doesn't develop that. More likely than not, he won't develop that. It's really interesting. Just hearing you talk about the gyro slider, I always think of a cutter as a pitch that has mostly late movement right it just it voids the barrel because at the last second you get that little bit of horizontal movement and guys can't really square it up but they swing and miss

on it entirely i kind of think the gyro slider just has more of like a late dropping movement as opposed to that and it obviously could move horizontally too it could move in both planes but uh in my head at least that's how i'm sort of separating i'm like okay a gyro slider has that same that's that last little bite and that's what makes it so good and it's interesting that that wasn't entirely captured previously so were there any other guys that you could think of that that sort of popped because of that adjustment and how that was being measured? Biggest stuff plus changes. Sam Long

went from terrible to awesome. Flexin, Wood got better. Musgrove got worse. Musgrove got worse. Let me see. Gyro Slider, though. I think Stroman, maybe?

I just wonder how many of those guys have have a propensity to induce a lot of weak contact too i would be curious to know how closely those things are tied together i do think that is part of it and then one of the other changes we made to stuff plus when we made that change uh and put spin efficiency in in was that we also split each of the events that it could predict. So instead of trying to sort of train the machine against run value and just, and just ask the machine what produces the best outcomes, we asked them, we asked the machine a little bit more specifically like what produces strikeouts what produces pop-ups what produces this um and by doing that uh we captured i think

some more weak contact guys so um you know we contact guys that uh pop for me are stroman um going from 77 stuff plus to 97 uh sean man Minaya went from 84 to 103 in the update. Alec Mills went down. Jordan Montgomery went from 80 to 97. So there are some weak contact guys in here that improved. But, yeah, i don't know uh the the the biggest nut for me to crack now um is to figure out how to reward number of pitches because it's it's not obvious you know someone couldn't manipulate their they have a better stuff number but only have two

pitches and therefore be you know not a great guy to bet on. So there has to be some way to do that and I'm discussing that with Max right now. Any ideas, please. Please send them to us. Rates and barrels at theathletic.com at Eno Saris on Twitter, at Derek

Van Riper for me. You guys know the tags hopefully by now. Thanks a lot for that question, DT. We had a question come in about Chris Sale and expectations for him following Tommy John surgery. And I know Stuff Plus is still relatively pretty new. I'm just kind of curious how much you lose. And we've known for a long time, walk rates are usually higher for guys coming back from Tommy John, right? The control doesn't always come back right away. But what are the expectations for Sale once he rejoins the Red Sox rotation? This could be applied to any number of starters. I mean, if you assume a normal rehab assignment where a guy has all of his pitches

and has Velo at or near where he was pre-surgery, can he be himself right away or is that an unreasonable sort of expectation we we have some you know actual evidence research that uh that points to the adage that that fastball velocity fastball command is the thing that struggles in the first year um coming off of tommy john like there's actual uh research out there that proves that or at least underlines that as a true thing. It's interesting. I think we've talked about Noah Syndergaard, Luis Severino and Chris Sale all year

in different capacities, it is interesting to say, which one would you have bet on to have the best recovery and to be the best in their first year? Because I think they're all great bets for next year. But somebody is going to give some value this year. And I would say this. Sale had the best fastball command going in.

Yes. Even if you take some away, that still leaves him at a better point. Yeah. But it is interesting to wonder. If you take something away from the guy who depends. Like Luis Severino was not good because of his fastball command. Right? Right.

Right. So what if he comes back and his stuff is there and he's like, well, McCann's a little bit worse, but that was never my thing anyway. So I'm still going to just throw it by people. And Syndergaard could probably say the same thing, although he has sneaky good command. I don't know if people, like he always rates it really highly by command plus. know if people like he always rates it really highly by command plus but i think like would it be would it be like that much more detrimental to sale because he's used to having the fastball

command um i think sale is the best bet of the three i hope i thought that going in i think i was on cinder guard because Sale was having some early setbacks back during draft season. That's right. That made me think that he might take the longest, and now it looks like he might actually get back first. But Cinderguard's had hamstring type, oblique type. He's had other type injuries of just being a large human type injuries. Yeah, kind of like the Aaron Judge problems. Yeah, so I'm not that surprised that he's had some issues coming back.

But Chris Sale seems super frail, you know, so he seems kind of breakable like a rubber band. Well, you've described body types in the past as whippy i would say chris sale is the extreme of this is a whippy body type that's true it's true and then severino is more just sort of stocky but i never liked severino's mechanics i mean i i don't i try not to mechanic scout because i don't i'm not a guru. I don't say terrible things about people when they're hurt. Oh, it was the inverted W.

Yeah. That's why he broke his leg. Yes. That's why he fell on the stairs carrying deer meat because of the inverted W. It was the inverted W. I still think it's parody. I'm not

going to lie. I don't think it's a real account. I think it's a long control job. Terrible joke. Thanks a lot for that question, Mike. There's a question here about J.D. Davis, and it begins, I'm sick of arguing with my friend. JD Davis is a fine player, but how good is he really? We're arguing over the small sample size nature of his 577 BABIP in his injury-shortened 2021. As a result, I'm tempted to fade him closer to his 2020, showing a 247 average, which is the only year he carried

a stabilized BABIP of 318. My counterpart argues his X stats point to, in 2019, as proof of concept. Well, I argue the 355 BABIP from that year is equally unsustainable in future seasons because he doesn't have Tim Anderson's athleticism. My question and theory with JD Davis is the sample. Does BABIP influence X-Stats or is it a tangible proof of quality of contact that has no bearing on balls bouncing in the right places can a player like davis with great hard hit metrics maintain a 350 babbitt year over year with a 51st percentile sprint speed how do we balance a babbitt we don't trust with stat cast metrics that we love are we both right are we both wrong

or are we just completely incapable of meeting in the middle? Thanks in advance. I might have to bet a four pack of hen house on it. Jordy. he hits the ball really hard. He barrels the ball well when he's healthy. I guess the question is, how unhealthy was he in 2020? The answer is, regress, regress, regress. Even if you're looking at his XBA, his expected batting average based on the angles and velocities he's hit is.338 according to StatCast. Even if you're looking at that, you wouldn't take.338 as his projection going forward because you'd have to regress in

that 2020. That existed. That happened. That 2018 happened. There's other plate appearances that happened. I think the answer is probably around the bat x uh 319 going forward uh zips has him at 328 going forward i would put the over under on babbitt going forward at like 325. Yeah. And okay. So if he does that. Which is still high. I mean the Major League Babbit was 290. Then what he's done so far might be a small notch above what he's likely to do going forward.

His career numbers with a 333 Babbit Park. 275, 355, and 463 for the slash line. It's a 121 WRC plus. 23.9% K rate. If he's just a shade below that, he's probably a high 260s guy with a 340s OBP and a 450 or so slugging percentage. That plays.

Not a good defender, so that's part of the issue is that he can lose some time. Yeah, if you're talking real life, it's a little bit if he's like a 115 wrc plus guy with bad defense that should be uh playing corner outfield or first base um the average wrc plus at first place is like 105 or something so now you're talking about a guy who's just barely above average in real life. Yeah.

But in fantasy, he still qualifies at third base, probably going to hit like 265, 270. I might push that batting average a little bit, but 10 homers. I mean, he's a great pickup right now if he's available to you. Yeah. So to answer the one question, babbitt influence x stats or the tangible proof of quality of contact that has no bearing on balls bouncing in the right places it's the other way around like your x stats like your x stats um there there is a skill in having a high babbitt the skill is not only being fast though

the skill is hitting the ball hard and spraying the ball around the park. Right, and not hitting it into the shift. That's the key, right? Can you actually use the entire field and not just be pounding everything to one side of the field? Because that changes a lot about your BABIP and your expected batting average and your overall offensive production. And also just not only side-to-side angle because he's a pull hitter, but up-down

angle, you know, you can, if you don't hit a lot of 40s or negative 40s in terms of launch angle, if you kind of stay in the right angles, and that's what you will see in barrel rate, stay in the right angles. And that's what you will see in barrel rate, but also something like dynamic hard hit rate that Alex Chamberlain has. There are certain stats that capture that ability to kind of hit in the right angles a lot. And he seems to have that ability,

hitting it hard in the right angles. So yeah, you can run a higher BABIP if you have those skills. But we just don't project anybody to have a 355 BABIP. I don't think, like I can look at the projections right now. I'll even use the BATX rest of season projections. So that's like maybe someone is just spanking the ball super hard. Maybe Vlad Jr. or Juan Soto could be close to that

just because the way they hit the ball, but that doesn't seem good. It's not showing me, but I'll just do Steamer then. Steamer, I think, has Babbit. And while you're pulling that, I mean, look at Davis's spray chart from 2019. That's power to all fields. That's every type of batted ball hit in just about every direction.

So I think he's a very good hitter and a pretty poor defender. And I would love it if he found his way into the AL or if universal DH happens, then you're not worried about that anymore. I think he could hit enough to be a credible DH for several years. So I think J.D. Davis be a credible DH for several years. So I think J.D. Davis is actually good as a fantasy player. He is a good fantasy player. He's not quite as good of a real life player because of these

limitations. Well I am surprised but I've just discovered that none of the public facing projections on Fangraphs project out of ABIP. They don't put it on the leaderboard, or they don't project it? I'm sure they project it.

I'm sorry if I didn't mean to say it that way. No, yeah, they don't give it to us. They're on the player pages. They're tucked in on the player page. Oh, yeah, of course they are. Like, Davis is at 319 from the bad x that's right yeah so who who would you be who is like uh all right let's say let's do it this way who's a uh major league leader in babbitt over the last three years who would you guess major league

leader in babbitt geez i think tim anderson who was mentioned in the question, might be the leader. He is, 395. And Moncada is second, 377. Turner is third. So there's a lot of speed there. Alec Baum, though, is fourth with 350. That's not a speed demon. Brian Reynolds is sixth through 347. Nelson Cruz is your almost J.D. Davis type, I think.

Just a guy who hits the ball hard in the right angles. Yeah, where's he at? 341, 11th. But let's look at Anderson because he has the highest form. 395 for his career, or for the last three years. And he's projected to have, oh, there you go, a 346. That's about the highest predicted batminton I've ever seen. Yeah, year over year looking at that, it jumps off the page.

I don't stare at badminton very often, but a.399,.383,.397 running through those last three years. But there's very little in common between him and J.D. Davis. Yeah, they're very different just in terms of the types of hitter that they are. I mean, Davis brings a lot of raw power and doesn't run nearly as well as Anderson runs. Davis pulls the ball 48% of the time. Tim Anderson is our spray hitter. Tim Anderson pulls the ball 33% of the time, goes center 38, oppo 28. that's way more balanced so tim anderson is our spray hitter uh that has wheels and he's got a 346 jd davis is our nelson cruz type let's look at nelson cruz i don't know why davis is pulling the ball so much this year it's a small sample because he

hasn't played that much his 2019 distribution is a lot better a 38.4 percent pull rate 37.8 percent up the middle and 23.8 that's what i think of him as a player yeah the projected babbitt for nelson cruz is by the bad x is 298 even though he holds like a 340 over the last three years well it's the cost of being very old in the big leagues yeah but so anyway x stats are trying to describe uh the quality of contact and the type of player a player is and different types of players will have different babbitts um i just think that davis is slightly closer to nelson cruz than he is to tim anderson so i doubt doubt, like I wouldn't project his Babbitt as high. No, no, I don't think it's necessary to do that.

But he could still be a very good player, even if he's in that 330 range or something instead. Doesn't have to be elevated up at 355 the way he was two years ago. Or whatever it is now, 500. Yeah, 556. Come on. But also you have to move past just like oh 556 babbit p is bad i mean no he's good he's just not this good right and i think hitting 307 back in that 2019 season like that's probably about as good as it can get for him over a full

season's worth of games i think if you, what's the best batting average season that J.D. Davis has left? I would say probably wouldn't go much higher than about 280. And again, I'm expecting more like high 260s from him in a typical year. Good run production, good power, good lineup. And again, a perfect fit for them

if Universal DH is here to stay in 2022. That is good news for J.D. Davis. Thanks a lot for that question, Jordy. I don't know if we actually solved your argument, so maybe you guys should just buy a four-pack and each drink two and just call it good so maybe you're both right in some ways. Just share the beers and stop fighting,

I think would be... See, that's our professional advice. It's usually kind of my advice to most things in life in general. Just stop fighting with each other and have a beer, and you'll feel a little bit better. Well, on that note, if you've got questions for a future episode, send them our way.

He's at Eno Saris on Twitter. I'm at Derek Van Ryper. The email address, again, ratesandbarrelsattheathletic.com. If you're enjoying this podcast on a platform that allows you to rate and review it, we really appreciate it. If you took a moment to do that, don't let the haters win. Hit the like button. If you're watching us on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

That way you get notifications anytime new episodes are available. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.